The announcement that the government of Guam's score on the annual "Performeter" report improved from 1.27 in fiscal 2010 to 2.73 in fiscal 2011 shouldn't be celebrated or claimed as a political success by any elected official.

In fact, local elected officials should be embarrassed that they have failed for years to address the problems that have been noted in these annual reports.

The Performeter is a financial scoring and analysis commissioned and paid for by the U.S. Department of Interior, that shows how territories rank, on scale of one to 10, similar to a credit score.

Guam has never fared well because of the local government's failure to commit to fixing longstanding financial problems. The deficit has been allowed to deepen, year after year, even after a deficit reduction commission was created, primarily because the commission has done nothing.

Elected officials have routinely turned to borrowing to pay for their overspending, continually increasing the debt burden on island residents -- the per capita long-term debt of residents was $8,236 in fiscal 2011, more than $1,000 higher than the previous fiscal year.

The Performeter also highlighted that the local government had just 3 cents of cash available for every $1 in short-term debt, and just 48 cents for every $1 it owed to vendors.

The Performeter makes it clear -- as it has every year it's been produced -- that the government of Guam's financial problems are horrific, and that elected officials have done nothing of significance to change that.

Every elected official should be ashamed by the data in the Performeter, as well as their continued failure to take any sort of action to address the host of financial problems in the government of Guam.

Even more important, they need to get it through their skulls that the government's financial woes can't be ignored. Elected officials always talk a good game when it comes to being more fiscally responsible, but this community needs and demands that they take action instead of just spouting political babble. We need the administration and Legislature to do what's right and what's needed, and to see it get done with all due, deliberate haste.